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Retired Professor Releases Debut Novel

CONWAY, Ark. (June 2, 2014) – Retired Hendrix politics & international relations professor Dr. Ian King’s  debut novel The Last Eucharist was recently published and is available in paperback here.

Born a British citizen in 1951, King served five years in the Royal Navy as a hydrographic surveyor. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1998. King retired as a distinguished professor of politics and international relations in 2011, after 26 years at Hendrix. His debut novel emerged from a creative writing class exercise and grew to become a philosophical statement about the human condition.

From Amazon.com

“The Last Eucharist has as its beginning an image of a man, both legs amputated just below the knee, doing a headstand on the sidewalk outside of a cinema. Looking at the world through satirical eyes, this book shines a bright light on human foibles. And author Ian T. King’s sarcastic humor makes unusual sense out of a chaotic world in the same vein as satirists such as George Saunders and Joseph Heller. Navigating the line between illusion and reality, the plot flows from the scene at the Palais de Théâtre in Jackrabbit, Arizona, toward a chance meeting between Thomas, the weathered old cripple, and a pretty twenty-something named Sally Graham. It continues moving forward, heading to Saigon, Vietnam, where serendipity again works its magic, drawing in a street urchin named Tomaso, another boy named Bao, and Thomas’s childhood friend Billy Smith. From the waywardness and confusion of the plot line, a strange logic emerges. Ultimately, The Last Eucharist is a story about the enigmatic nature of human existence—a philosophical statement about the human condition. It’s a unique statement, expressed through a wonderfully original work.”

Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the sixth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the country’s “Up and Coming” liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report.  Hendrix is featured in the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges, as well as the 2014 Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, Forbes magazine's list of America's Top Colleges, and the 2014 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu